`Europe Allocates €200M to Promote Agri-food Products - Olive Oil Times

Europe Allocates €200M to Promote Agri-food Products

By Olive Oil Times Staff
Nov. 19, 2019 00:00 UTC

The European Commission will allo­cate €200.9 mil­lion ($222.5 mil­lion) in 2020 to fund pro­mo­tion activ­i­ties for EU agri-food prod­ucts at home and abroad.

The EU is not the top world agri-food exporter by acci­dent.- Phil Hogan, agri­cul­ture com­mis­sioner

The 2020 pro­mo­tion pol­icy work pro­gram adopted by the Commission out­lines the main pri­or­i­ties for sup­port. EU pol­icy on the pro­mo­tion of agri-food prod­ucts is designed to help the sec­tor take advan­tage of the expand­ing and increas­ingly dynamic global agri-food mar­ket, raise aware­ness on qual­ity schemes includ­ing organic pro­duce and help pro­duc­ers should they face mar­ket dis­tur­bances.

Agriculture and rural devel­op­ment Commissioner Phil Hogan said: Europe’s rep­u­ta­tion in the world for agri-food prod­ucts is unpar­al­leled. The EU is not the top world agri-food exporter by acci­dent. Our pro­mo­tion pol­icy with an ever-increased bud­get sup­ports EU pro­duc­ers in mak­ing their prod­ucts known both in the EU and out­side but also in fac­ing mar­ket dif­fi­cul­ties by rais­ing more aware­ness on their pro­duce. The trade agree­ments in place also cre­ate the con­di­tions to increase their exports to high-grow­ing mar­kets. The recent con­clu­sion of the EU-China bilat­eral agree­ment on geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tions is yet another exam­ple of the Commission’s work to cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for pro­duc­ers and high-qual­ity EU prod­ucts.”
See Also:EU Agriculture Commissioner Pledges Support for Spanish Olive Sector

In 2020, more than half of the bud­get, or €118 mil­lion ($130.7 mil­lion), will go towards cam­paigns pur­su­ing mar­kets out­side the EU with high-growth poten­tials, such as Canada, China, Japan, Korea, Mexico and the United States. Eligible sec­tors include dairy and cheese, table olives and olive oil and wines. The selected cam­paigns are expected to enhance the com­pet­i­tive­ness and con­sump­tion of EU agri-food prod­ucts, raise their pro­file and increase their mar­ket share in these tar­geted coun­tries.

Campaigns will also inform EU and global con­sumers of the var­i­ous EU qual­ity schemes and labels such as geo­graph­i­cal indi­ca­tions or organic prod­ucts. An addi­tional focus of the cam­paigns will also be to high­light the high safety and qual­ity stan­dards, as well as the diver­sity and tra­di­tional aspects of EU agri-food prod­ucts. Finally, within the EU, the focus will be on pro­mot­ing healthy eat­ing and increase, in the frame­work of bal­anced diets, the con­sump­tion of fresh fruits and veg­eta­bles.

The calls for pro­pos­als for the upcom­ing 2020 cam­paigns will be pub­lished in January 2020. A wide range of bod­ies, such as trade orga­ni­za­tions, pro­ducer orga­ni­za­tions and agri-food groups respon­si­ble for pro­mo­tion activ­i­ties are eli­gi­ble to apply for fund­ing and sub­mit their pro­pos­als.

So-called sim­ple’ pro­grams can be sub­mit­ted by one or more orga­ni­za­tions from the same EU coun­try; the multi’ pro­grams come from at least two national orga­ni­za­tions from at least two mem­ber states, or from one or more European orga­ni­za­tions.

For 2020, €100 mil­lion is allo­cated to sim­ple pro­grams, while €91.4 mil­lion will go towards multi-pro­grams.

An addi­tional €9.5 mil­lion is set aside for the Commission’s own ini­tia­tives. Those include par­tic­i­pa­tion in fairs and com­mu­ni­ca­tion cam­paigns, as well as diplo­matic offen­sives led by the agri­cul­ture and rural devel­op­ment European Commissioner and accom­pa­nied by a busi­ness del­e­ga­tion. These ini­tia­tives will be fur­ther rein­forced by an addi­tional €17,2 mil­lion avail­able from the 2019 multi-pro­mo­tion pro­grams. This rep­re­sents addi­tional sup­port for cheeses and but­ter, olive oil and table olives in a chal­leng­ing global mar­ket.





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